“Now,” Dominick commanded, ignoring A.J.
Ana backed up several more steps until she was alongside the two armed guards. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, then squeezed off a round.
But what choice did she have?
A.J. had to die.
Chapter Thirty-Three
“You good?”
A.J. groaned as Chris grabbed on to his wrist and pulled him upright from the ground. “As long as you’re real and not a ghost.” He missed Marcus, but he doubted that’d be the ghost haunting him down in the caves. “Damn, that hurts.”
“Better than killing ya.” Chris helped A.J. out of the shirt he’d changed into behind the bushes before entering the cave. He hadn’t wanted to wear a bulky bulletproof vest and chest plate while faking being a tourist.
Double protection and the motherfucking round still felt like a professional baseball player had taken a bat to his abdomen, making his insides nearly shoot out of him.
“It didn’t break the skin. Ana’s a damn good shot. One painful bruise, but—”
“Did the plan work?” That was all A.J. cared about. Was Ana safe?
The team knew the Volkovs would require Ana to prove her loyalty. To kill in cold blood at their command. Ana had clung to the hope she wouldn’t have to pull the trigger. Of course, if one of the Volkov guards had chosen to take an additional shot to ensure A.J. was down, A.J.’s people were waiting in the wings to take them out. Thankfully, that hadn’t happened.
“Yeah, Dominick and Grigory, plus two guards, left with Ana. She told them she had a translated copy of the ledger, and they no longer needed to look for the key in the tunnels.” Chris helped him to his feet. “We gave them a head start so they wouldn’t think they were being followed. You were unconscious for a few minutes, which we didn’t count on. The rest of the guys are on the move and filtering into their next positions. The FBI agents are on standby.”
A.J. took the clean shirt Chris handed him once he’d discarded his protective gear, groaning with each movement. But Ana needed his help, so screw the pain.
“The Volkovs are sending a cleanup team to take care of your body. They’ll be here soon.” Chris reached into his backpack for a pint of blood. He busied himself with staging the scene to make it look as though A.J. had been shot, but he’d escaped. Blood on the ground. Handprints smeared on the wall.
Chris hadn’t been thrilled about carting pig’s blood around with him in his backpack, him being an animal lover and all. Even pigs. And yet he wasn’t a vegetarian. Go figure.
“Unfortunately,” Chris said while cleaning his hands and tossing the empty blood bag into his pack, “the tracking device isn’t working down here. That, or Ana hasn’t turned it on yet. Lost her on comms when she went deeper into the tunnel network.”
They had a backup plan for their backup plan, though.
“This is Echo Two, what’s Delta One’s status?” he asked, hoping to link up with the team for an update. As the guys traveled farther down into the tunnels, the chances of maintaining the comms connection grew slimmer.
“Ah, glad to hear you’re alive, and she didn’t actually kill you,” Finn popped on to the line.
“We picked up Delta’s trail. Heading to the Danube,” Roman announced. “Delta One gave us some breadcrumbs to follow, letting us know to go to the right.”
The “crumbs” Roman referred to was a type of powder Ana had stashed in her pocket that would only show up with a special light. Another backup plan in case the tracking device didn’t work.
“Bravo Two and Three are sweeping the other tunnel route to see where it leads and making sure the Volkovs don’t double back,” Chris explained. “Echo One and Harper are waiting for us outside the main entrance on Lovas Street. We can get to the river quicker with wheels than playing catch-up in the tunnels.” Chris hooked A.J.’s arm to help him move, then used the headlight on his NVGs to guide them out of the labyrinth.
A.J. moved as quickly as he could, allowing adrenaline to push him since he was otherwise sluggish from getting shot as well as damn sore from having been thrown from the BMX last night.
“Shit, we have a problem,” Harper said, her voice clear over the comms once they reached the stairs leading to their exit. “Hungarian police are patrolling the streets. But, wait.”
“Annnd saved by the ex-husband,” Wyatt said a moment later. “He’s distracting them. Move out now while you can.”
A.J. never thought he’d be happy for an assist from Ana’s ex, but if Kyle was helping A.J. get to Ana and keep her safe, he’d buy the guy dinner after this was over.
Chris and A.J. hurried out the entrance and hopped into the mobile unit down the street, making a clean escape thanks to Kyle.
“Hey, brother,” Wyatt said from the driver’s seat. “You okay?”
Chris removed his night-vision goggles and attached headlamp and shifted the rest of the gear in the van off to the side so they could have a seat in the back.
“I’ll be fine when Ana is safe, and the Volkovs are in custody,” he said as Wyatt drove.
Harper clutched her laptop when they hit a bump, then peered back at A.J. “Want something for the pain?” she asked, worry flashing in her eyes.
“No.” He didn’t give a damn about anything other than getting to Ana. “What’s the status by the water? If they take her on a boat—”
“Already on it,” Harper cut him off. “We’re pinpointing vessels on the river nearby. Narrowed it down to three possible yachts cruising within a half a kilometer from the Széchenyi Chain Bridge.”
Two Feds were in a speedboat waiting on the water and away from any tourist cruise boats. They were told to remain near the main road, Budai alsó rkp., which ran parallel with the water, in the event A.J. and his team needed a water assist—and from the looks of it, they would.
There weren’t many places for a private boat to dock, and the FBI couldn’t exactly sidle up next to a “pub party” on a boat, or a romantic dinner cruise. Options were limited, which meant the situation had to be kept fluid, and they’d have to do their best not to draw the attention of nosy tourists who packed the riverbank.
A Saturday night at ten p.m., in June, in a romantic city that had its landmarks flooded with lights . . . it wasn’t ideal for a covert operation, but what choice did they have?
“The FBI task force is putting up a drone over the water and using a fiber-optic listening device. We’ll see what we can find out from those three vessels.” Harper sounded hopeful. That was a positive sign.
“We’ll get your girl. Don’t worry.” Wyatt caught A.J.’s eyes in the rearview mirror before they got off the roundabout, not wanting to actually cross the bridge.
“Honestly, if we didn’t have the FBI assist, we would have been screwed,” Harper said. “But surprisingly, thanks to Director Mendez, we have everything we could possibly need.”
A.J. never thought his team would be thanking Mendez for pulling out all the stops for them, considering he’d been such a pain in the ass on their op with him last year.